The chaos and distractions that are part of the Trump administration landed on one of Dallas’ most important companies last week.

AT&T, which has spent the past year preparing to acquire Time Warner Inc., had to publicly deny that it had offered to sell CNN in order to win regulatory approval. In a broadcast from New York, CEO Randall Stephenson said he never made such an offer and would not do so. He added that AT&T was ready to litigate the case.

It was an extraordinary moment, because the AT&T-Time Warner proposal is still under review by the Justice Department. There’s time to find common ground, assuming partisan politics and personal grudges don’t drive the parties further apart.

The idea of selling CNN appeared in several news reports, attributed to unnamed sources. Stephenson said he had to set the record straight and reaffirm AT&T’s commitment to Time Warner employees, especially the creative talent at CNN.

The news network has broken many key stories on President Donald Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly attacked it as a purveyor of “fake news,” and many feared that his administration was trying to punish CNN through the AT&T review.

Mergers are supposed to be evaluated on the economics, so White House intervention would cross a line.

“Exactly what the Founders feared when they drafted the First Amendment,” said Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush and a frequent Trump critic.

As a candidate, Trump opposed the merger, saying it would concentrate too much power in too few hands. On Saturday, Trump said he didn’t make the decision on AT&T and CNN. Then he added: “I do feel you should have as many news outlets as you can — especially since so many are fake.”

The Justice Department must evaluate AT&T-Time Warner on the merits — and put aside Trump’s frustrations with CNN.

No competitors would be eliminated in the deal and a so-called vertical merger hasn’t been blocked in the U.S. for four decades. Regulators for 18 countries, including the European Union and Mexico, have approved it without any asset sales.

If there are concerns about AT&T’s power, regulators should require remedies to protect competition, as they did with Comcast in 2011.

We believe consumers and the marketplace stand to benefit from the combination.

AT&T would pay almost $109 billion, including debt, to marry Time Warner content with its distribution in wireless service and pay TV. AT&T wants to create new low-cost video options and ad models. It expects to innovate faster and accelerate the adoption of next-gen wireless.

Would AT&T become too big? Not measured against the tech giants pushing into Hollywood.